Ornamental pear, flowering plum in full bloom
Q: My husband and I just moved to Summerlin, and I am seeing pink and white blooms on trees in this area. Do you know what kind of trees these are?
Plant them as you would any other landscape tree or shrub. Dig the hole at least three times the diameter of the container. Mix a good quality compost and a couple handfuls of phosphorus fertilizer into the soil removed from the hole — about 50 percent by volume.
When planting these trees, remove them from the container and use plenty of water during planting. The planting hole should be a slurry of soil, compost and fertilizer when finished to remove air pockets and then allowed to drain.
Make a basin around the tree 3 to 4 inches deep and fill it with water three times after planting. Continue hand watering these trees three times a week, filling the basin each time, before leaving them to your irrigation system.
If the tree has a stake in the container, cut the green plastic fastening the tree to the stake and pound it solidly into the soil at the bottom of the hole. Reattach the stake to the tree with green nursery tape to prevent the roots from moving. Remove the stake after the first growing season.
Q: Can established lemon trees in a large pot co-exist with apple seedlings while the seedlings grow larger?
A: I assume you want to use the existing soil in this container to grow apple seedlings alongside an established lemon tree. Perhaps you want to use the shade from the lemon tree to give the apple seedlings some protection from the sun or trying to save space.
Let’s cover first things first. The best time of year to grow apples from seed is in the fall, germinating them directly in the soil around midSeptember to mid-October. All apple seedlings that grow in our climate will sail through our winters just fine.
You also can grow apples from seed in the spring. When you plant apple seeds in the fall, they have growth from two “springs” to get some size. When planting seeds in the spring, they have only one “spring” to get big. Seedlings grown in the spring will not develop the same size as they would if planted in the fall.
Yes, they will do just fine planted in a container alongside established lemon trees. These two trees — apple and lemon — will not “fight” with each other.
You will have a problem growing them from seed if the lemon tree is quite a bit older. The roots of older trees growing in containers might not provide enough room for new seedlings to get established. The roots of an older, established lemon tree might choke out apple seedlings.
I am curious why would you want to do this. Apples grown from seed produce fruit quality somewhere in between the fruit quality of the two parent trees. The fruit might be good or it might not. It’s a four- to five-year crap shoot.
Secondly, this tree will be on its own roots and full-sized. Nearly all of the apples available now are dwarf or semi-dwarf. This is because they are grafted to keep them smaller and producing fruit earlier.
Unless you are doing this out of curiosity, or as a hobby, it is not worth your time and effort. Buy a known apple tree variety that you like on a dwarfing rootstock. You will be happier.
Q: I planted three blueberry plants (Southmoon and Misty) last year, and they haven’t grown. I used compost and peat moss in a raised bed and added soil acidifier. They are growing very little, and the new growth is reddish. I suspect the problem is nutritional, but I need advice.
A: Please realize that blueberries are “iffy” in our climate and soils. One of my precautions to people: When plants are less suitable to our MORRIS,